Pharmaceutical Engineering Design based on professionaldesign competition and comprehensive project

Zhenhua Chen1, Yuyu Xu2,a, Leilei Zhou1, Ying Yin1 and Xuemin Duan1

1School of Pharmacy, Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University, Nanchang 330013, China2Faculty of Tourism, Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China

Keywords: pharmaceutical engineering; design competition; comprehensive project; GMP; public works

Abstract. Objective: To improve the capabilities of solving practical engineering problems forPharmaceutical engineers. Methods: All subjects were divided into two groups, and in theexperimental group, elements of professional design competition and plant design withpreparation technology, equipment, GMP and public works were introduced into thePharmaceutical Engineering design. Results: The experimental group had high enthusiasm withstrong motivation, deep and detailed communication and discussion, also created a betterdesigned works. Conclusion: The method used in this paper can improve the engineeringdesign capabilities.

1 IntroductionPharmaceutical Engineering major needs to train engineering and technical personnel forpharmaceutical enterprises and curriculum design is one of the main practical courses to developstudents’ engineering calculation and design capabilities. The course is generally carried out in senior,and is a usage and consolidation of comprehensive knowledge after students finished all professionalcore curriculums. The curriculum design topics are more from the classic knowledge unit and thereare few excellent courses or high quality resource sharing course for Pharmaceutical EngineeringCurriculum Design Course in Chinese universities. Therefore, the level of the curriculum designcourse in different universities differs a lot. Especially in non-Engineering Colleges, teaching qualityof the curriculum design course is unsatisfactory.

By visiting JZJT, Huiren Group, Salubris and other large pharmaceutical companies inside andoutside Jiangxi province, we found that the main expectations of pharmaceutical companies for thepharmaceutical engineering graduates are focused on solving engineering problems in the productionprocess. Thus, the engineering capabilities are essential for the students and their future career.

The Education Department of higher education of the College of pharmacy professional teachingand guidance committee (now the Pharmacy Professional Teaching Guidance Committee) organized anational pharmaceutical engineering design competition starting in 2011, once a year. In order toimprove students’ pharmaceutical engineering design concept and capacity ,promote the reform ofteaching engineering design courses and guide colleges and universities to strengthen the cultivation

a Corresponding author : zhenhuadeai@163.com

International Conference on Engineering and Technology Innovations (ICETI 2016)

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of students' engineering design capabilities. The competition topics are often from factories andPharmaceutical Industry Design Institute.

The project introduces useful elements of national pharmaceutical engineering design competitioninto the Pharmaceutical Engineering Curriculum Design Course, which orients the subject competitionand explores teaching reform for curriculum design, improving the quality of teaching curriculum andstudents’ design interests in learning curriculum design and enhancing engineering capabilities ofstudents.

2 The reform of teaching contentThe curriculum design topics used to be from the classic knowledge unit, such as a design of tabletworkshop, the design of capsule workshop, the design of injection production workshop and rawmaterial drug production workshop and so on. Design files are rarely associated with the actualproduction and usually abstract and empty.

By studying the competition topics of the National Pharmaceutical Engineering Design Contestover the years, the author found that topics were often from a specific production practice, puttingengineering projects as the main line and closing to the latest technology and the requirements ofindustry. For example, in 2011, the engineering design of the intravenous Omeprazole sodium sterilelyophilized preparation workshop introduced isolators, RABS and other latest technology. In 2012,the design of peptide lyophilized injectable formulation production line from a new pharmaceuticalproject, regarded requisite file of the owner as topic. In 2013, the design of multiple lyophilizedpreparation workshop required giving consideration of the demand of production expansion in futurebecause of the approval and marketing of new products. In 2014, the design of chemical raw materialsversatile workshop needed to manufacture products of three different chemical raw materials anddiversify production shift.

The assignment files of Design Contest provided direction for the reform of teaching content in thepharmaceutical engineering curriculum design. We referred to the topics and requirements of designcompetition of calendar year and constantly enrich and update the curriculum design exams, makingtopics more vivid and true. At the same time the teaching content is gradually proximate the latesttechnology requirements of the pharmaceutical companies. So students can be able to come intocontact with front-line industry dynamics in the classroom.

3 Reform of teaching methodsThe traditional curriculum design is often a grouped in the bedroom as a unit or arbitrarily assignedaccording to student number by the teacher. Each group has a design task, guided by a teacher, tocomplete the design specification in time . The design process does not specify a fixed place andstudents usually contact with teachers through QQ, telephone or to the office to find the instructordoubts after they encounter problems.

After the introduction of the design competition into teaching of curriculum design, students cansign up autonomously and participating students form a team according to their interests, strengthsand so on, which forms a group of curriculum design. In this group, you can see more autonomy instudents, better teamwork, excellent coordination, significant increase of the students’ interests andenthusiasm. Meanwhile, according to the discipline of design competition, each team is arranged twoteachers to guide them. Profession and advantages of different instructor, complement each other.Students can get a more comprehensive professional guidance. Third, students are required to gathertogether at a predetermined network place to design, so as to help the teachers’ centralized guidanceand management and teaching efficiency and quality will get promoted. Finally, the design topicinstructor themselves for the first time to encounter is relatively novel, so the design process is theonly student-centered. Seminar discussions can be conducted under the guidance of teachers’participation and members can discuss with each other about solving solutions, which forms aresearch-mutual learning, so students' learning and analytical ability will obtain a further improvement.

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4 Reform of assessment methodsAssessment program is an important way to test students' mastery of this course and to examineteaching effectiveness of teachers. Therefore, evaluation methods and scoring criteria in sciencecurriculum have a very important significance for enhancing the quality of teaching.

Pharmaceutical engineering design competition usually consists of preliminary and final.Preliminaries’ assessments base mainly on the design specification and its scoring project includesfive contents: the project management, analysis of production and operation, analysis of processequipment and equipment selection, analysis of facility layout and design of documenting. The finalassessments are based on the reply , its scoring project includes two contents: the design of statementsand production of presentation materials and live content ratings reply. They both have detailedscoring criteria.

Referring to pharmaceutical engineering as a model of design competition, we revised examinemethods for pharmaceutical engineering curriculum design, consisting of usual results (discussionprocess), the design specification and the reply. Each section sets a detailed scoring criteria.Meanwhile, referring to the mode of design competition, we changed the way only by an instructorscoring into a team of 3-5-member, adding seriousness, objectivity and impartiality to the courseexamination and it allows students to gain further correct attitude towards learning.

5 Manufacturing animation and video clipsAt the reply stage of pharmaceutical engineering design competition, all teams usually show theirdesign work by making a flash animation. These excellent flash animations become an excellentteaching material of Course Design. Of course, it is not enough to rely solely on the students’ works,the author also develops independently some pharmaceutical equipment and workshop process layoutanimation according to the needs of teaching. In addition, the author films and produces a number ofvideo materials by participating in teacher training of pharmaceutical engineering design competitionOrganizing Committee, National Pharmaceutical Machinery Exhibition twice a year and visiting topharmaceutical companies.

Making these vivid animation and audio-visual materials, has enriched teaching materials ofcurriculum design and made students more intuitive understanding of the productive process of drugs,operational principle of equipment and requirements of workshop layout in pharmaceutical industry.So the originally boring, difficult understanding of engineering knowledge become life and easy tounderstand. It not only reduces the difficulty on teaching, but also improves the teaching effectiveness.

6 Summary and OutlookThe project introduces beneficial elements of National Pharmaceutical Engineering DesignCompetition into the teaching of Curriculum Design Course for Pharmaceutical Engineering major.By comparison we found that: the students were little enthusiastic about learning with weak initiationand poor quality of design specifications under the traditional teaching methods of this course ; Whilestudents in the experimental group had high enthusiasm with strong motivation , obviously deep anddetailed communication and discussion with the instructor. The high class design specification underthe mode for design competition and these make them get better grades. These students wererecommended to participate the National Pharmaceutical Engineering Design Competition and all alsohave achieved good grades , they won second prize for two consecutive years in the NationalPharmaceutical Engineering Students Design Competition in 2013 and 2014. What’s more, we foundthat these students generally feel a huge harvest in learning this course, and it also a great help to theirwork through their return visits.

Meanwhile, the instructor of the course has significantly improved their engineering designcapability and teaching level of professional courses by participating teacher training of the National

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Design Competition and exchanging ideas with other industry experts and university teachers in thecountry.

In the future, we will promote this teaching achievement in pharmaceutical engineering curriculumdesign , arrange all the students with grouping and lay out of assignment file, guide and examinecourses according to the mode for design competition, making more students benefit from it. Ofcourse, teaching methods are without fixed way and many teaching methods can be used inPharmaceutical Engineering Curriculum Design. Whichever method, it's good or bad depending onwhether it reaches the teaching purposes. In terms of professional orientation for training appliedtalents as the goal, the success or failure of our teaching reform should rely on whether the students'engineering practice capability has been improved. So, in the future work of students, we need tracktheir working ability and feedback from the enterprise, so as to perfect, popularize and apply theachievement of the teaching reform.

Acknowledgments This work was supported by a grant from the Research Project onTeaching Reform of Jiangxi Province (JXJG-14-10-22).

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